What A Family!

Those dear faces! 

I love each and every one of them! 

All there recently to help celebrate my birthday.

 

 

It was a rare treat for me to go out to a nice restaurant. RH and I just don't get out nights much anymore and we stick pretty close to home instead of going downtown. 

The staff at The Optimist in Nashville served us the delicious seafood they're known for. I wish I had a picture of a granddaughter eating her first raw oyster, and then the second and third!

I felt as if I were Julia Child in her first French restaurant in the movie Julie & Julia as the browned butter pecan whole flounder was expertly deboned for me.

I think three of us ordered this dish while one ordered scallops with sweet corn and bacon vinaigrette, one ordered the New England lobster roll, and quite a few ordered the dry aged Kansas City strip with ramp butter.

The kitchen even fixed a chicken dish for this sweet young lady...

And soon we left with take home desserts, mine being a yummy chocolate pudding cake enjoyed before an early bedtime for a very tired birthday girl.

And the next day brought another gift when my granddaughter, above, and her mom and dad gifted me with this...

That's not a photo op, friends! This little one worked for hours with her dad scrubbing the siding and railing and floor on our front porch and across the front of the house as well as washing windows. 

And she claimed it was fun! She's always outside at home helping her dad and mom with yard care.

 

Tree limbs and holly bushes got trimmed away from the roof and hauled away.

 

I couldn't get a good picture of my daughter-in-law because she was bent over for hours weeding the front beds and planting seeds and pots of plants that RH hadn't got around to.

 

Even big sister helped out when she wasn't helping her Mimi inside!

 

I couldn't believe how much they all got done to help us with so much that needed doing. My front porch alone was an answered prayer and I'll try to do a post later on about that but here is one picture of my clean front porch that has been greatly decluttered now of my vintage primitive collection that had grown out of bounds until there was hardly any place to sit. 

 

But it was the back garden that everyone gathered in that late afternoon after more family arrived. 

 

 

I took this garden picture the next afternoon when I was in the kitchen and looked out and saw all the garden chairs pulled to the sunny patio and wished so much that I had taken one the day before of all the people who sat in the chairs.

We all talked for hours, laughing at old family stories, and going inside to the kitchen to sample food--I'd baked a double recipe of biscuits, roasted pork tenderloin, and made a green bean casserole, all thrown together while my helpers worked in the front yard.

RH had worked for days in the garden after we'd visited the family nursery down the street from our old house that was having a 25% off sale. I spent my Christmas money and some of my birthday money on pots of annuals in bloom for the added color I craved as well as herbs and pepper plants for the kitchen porch. 

Below is a picture of this garden spot when we moved here seven years ago when there was nothing but grass and trees and a few bushes. The sunflowers covered the old well.

RH has given me this gift of a garden to look out over while I'm working in my kitchen and a place for us to sit and talk and watch BreeBree and James Mason play. 

And I thank him continuously for that. 

I know this is far too long but it was my birthday and so I'll show you two more pictures taken inside my office where my daughter and grandson kept me company after granddaughters and their parents got back on the road to drive home, always an emotional time for me.

Here's a picture of my handsome first grandson and me, and my lack of smile is because I hadn't brushed my teeth yet after eating, not because I was as sad as I look.

 

They did coax a smile out of me for this one with my beautiful darling daughter.

We had an hour to visit some more before she and our son-in-law had to leave for the airport. And there was a special birthday gift from her that took me completely by surprise. I'll share that with you when the third part of her three-part birthday gift arrives soon by mail. 

A hint about what it is: it has to do with blogging. But no, you'd never guess it so you'll just have to wait.

I stretched out celebrating my birthday the whole month of May and now I'm stretching it out into June! 

Many thanks to my dear blog friends who left me birthday wishes in my last post. They blessed my heart!

And my thanks and love to my wonderful family, every one of you. You made it a birthday to remember!